Out Front, on Top

The Four Tops have been down the comeback trail so many times they know the route by heart.

“Indestructible,” the pop/R&B; group’s current Top 40 single from the “1988 Summer Olympics Album,” marks the Tops’ third comeback since their initial flurry of hits on Motown in the ‘60s.

They returned to the Top 10 in 1973 with “Keeper of the Castle” and “Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got)” and landed another smash in 1981 with “When She Was My Girl.”

Levi Stubbs, whose deep, distinctive voice is the Tops’ most famous asset, says the periodic revivals are good for the group’s morale--and drawing power. “No matter how many hits you’ve had, that’s had --you know what I’m saying?

“When you’ve been in the business as long as we have and you’re still able to get on the charts and compete with what’s happening now, it shows us that we’re doing something right. And the hits help us to draw a new audience. They’ve probably heard about us through their parents, but now they’re interested in our music personally.”

The Tops--who have been together without a change in personnel for 34 years, a record matched only by the Mills Brothers--got a big shot in the arm from the “Motown 25” special, which first aired five years ago.

“That show was more than a shot in the arm; it was a kick in the rear, if I might say that,” says Stubbs, 52. “After the show, there was a big surge in our drawing power. We toured for three years with the Temptations, and the shows were sold out. In the last few years, we’ve seen audiences with kids who know every word of every song--songs that were recorded maybe seven or eight years before they were born.”

Stubbs says the Tops--who are in the running to be inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame next year--owe much of their success to sheer survival.

Says Stubbs: “You’ve got to stay in the game to win the game.”